Oral History Interview with Tom Bower, 1948-

Title

Description

Moriah Petty interviews Tom Bower, a Catholic gay-identified man who has lived in DC since the 1960s working in museums and organizing the LGBTQ Catholics and greater gay community.

Date

19 March 2016

Coverage

1950s-present. Tom Bower was an early organizer of the Washington DC chapter of Dignity, a group for Catholic LGBT-identified individuals and remains an active participant. It is a support system and a social justice organization that donates to community groups. Tom speaks of his dual-identity as Catholic and gay and his personal choice to stick with his faith. He describes the ways Dignity was embraced by DC Catholics and the times when they faced discrimination and rejection form the Church. Tom has lived in Washington DC since the 1960s and worked in the Smithsonian museums. Due to the intellectual and artistic leaning of his job and social circles, Tom found fairly easy acceptance as an out gay man. He describes attending the first Pride parade (more of a rally), the demographics of the gay community over the decades, the gay job network, and popular gathering places such as leather bar The Eagle, P St. Beach and Lamda Rising bookstore. He shares memories of the AIDS crisis including seeing the memorial quilt on the Mall and volunteering for the Whitman Walker clinic. Tom reflects on his childhood growing up in the Midwest with zero visibility of LGBT individuals and of knowing his sexual orientation but not how to express it. He is out to his family. Tom Bower is interviewed by Moriah Petty.

Citation

For more information on the Rainbow History Project and its work to preserve, describe, and make available the history of sexual minorities in the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area, please visit the Rainbow History Project website.